


A Blaze, A Burn, A Blight

by EmeraldHeiress



Series: Shards of Kyber [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Mentions of Slavery, The Force, Young Anakin Skywalker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:02:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26572648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmeraldHeiress/pseuds/EmeraldHeiress
Summary: Anakin had always been surrounded by the heat of the suns of Tatooine. But also the warmth of his mother’s love.
Series: Shards of Kyber [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1847170
Comments: 10
Kudos: 146





	A Blaze, A Burn, A Blight

Anakin had always been surrounded by the heat of the suns of Tatooine. But also the warmth of his mother’s love. He could feel it, wrap around him like a blanket even on the coldest of desert nights. Keeping him warm and his dreams safe even after the hardest days.

All around him crackled the lives of the people of the sands, like fires in the dusk. There had always been the sharp blaze of a master’s anger, the sting of the lash. The burning hate of the slaves. The desire that smoldered like a cloud over the brothels.

Passion was the flavor of desert.

Then it was all taken away.

For the first time in his life, Anakin was cold. His mother’s fierce love wasn’t there, pressing against him and keeping him warm. Around him, he could sense the worry from the handmaidens and the Queen. The kindness that Padmé imbued in the blanket she left him. The duty and fatigue from the pilots and Captain Panaka.

His new master… He could barely feel. It was easier when he was closer but from where they were it was difficult.

It was so empty.

In contrast, Coruscant was overwhelming. He’d never seen so many lights or buildings or people in his life. _It hurt_. Anakin cringed, back from the sharp pain and the chill around him. Withdrew.

His stomach turned. Nothing was familiar.

Anakin was still cold. As he trailed after his new master and his master’s apprentice and into the Jedi Temple, he wondered if he always would be now.

Surrounded by windows of a world not his, by the press of people he did not know, people that could determine his entire future, he shivered.

The chill of indifferent curiosity washed over him from those in the room. A touch of cool annoyance. An icy spike of fear from someone in the room. He’d never felt fear so cold.

Fear was an achingly familiar emotion to him.

The fear of the lash, of the master’s ire. Fear of being sold away from his mother. He knew the taste of his own fear but it wasn’t cold for him. It never had been. It was always mixed with the heat of anger or the need to protect. A blaze of justice.

The emotion turning in his stomach was new. He didn’t yet have a name for it. A twisting thing that seemed to have many heads.

_“How feel you?”_ The small master asked him.

Anakin answered with the only words that made sense to him. _“Cold, sir.”_


End file.
